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Alexander Stephens
Alexander Hamilton Stephens (born February 11, 1812 – March 4, 1883) was Confederate politician who served as the Vice President of the Confederate States from 1861 to 1883. ''Bio 'Prior to the Civil War' Stephens attended Franklin College and established a legal practice in his home town of Crawfordville, Georgia. After serving in both houses of the Georgia General Assembly, he won election to Congress, taking his seat in 1843. He became a leading Southern Whig and strongly opposed the Mexican–American War. After the war, Stephens was a prominent supporter of the Compromise of 1850 and helped draft the Georgia Platform, which opposed secession. A proponent of the expansion of slavery into the territories, Stephens also helped pass the Kansas–Nebraska Act. As the Whig Party collapsed in the 1850s, Stephens eventually joined the Democratic Party and worked with President James Buchanan to admit Kansas as a state under the Lecompton Constitution. Stephens declined to seek re-election in 1858, but continued to publicly advocate against secession. After Georgia and other Southern states seceded and formed the Confederate States of America, Stephens was elected as the Confederate Vice President. 'Becoming Vice President of the CSA' n 1861, Stephens was elected as a delegate to the Georgia Secession Convention to decide Georgia's response to the election of Abraham Lincoln. During the convention, as well as during the 1860 presidential campaign, Stephens, who came to be known as the sage of Liberty Hall, called for the South to remain loyal to the Union, likening it to a leaking but fixable boat. During the convention he reminded his fellow delegates that Republicans were a minority in Congress (especially in the Senate) and, even with a Republican President, they would be forced to compromise just as the two sections had for decades. Because the Supreme Court had voted 7–2 in the Dred Scott case, it would take decades of Senate-approved appointments to reverse it. He voted against secession in the convention but asserted the right to secede if the federal government continued allowing northern states to nullify the Fugitive Slave Law with "personal liberty laws." He was elected to the Confederate Congress and was chosen by the Congress as Vice President of the provisional government. He was then elected Vice President of the Confederacy in February 1861. He took the provisional oath of office on February 11, 1861, then the 'full term' oath of office on February 22, 1862 and served until his death on March 4th, 1883, on the final year of the Civil War, during the Richmond Theater. 'Attempt to end the War' On March 23rd, 1865, as the Confederate Invasion of the North commenced, following Lee's success at Antietam Creek, during the early days of the Siege of Washington DC, Stephens felt intent on ending the war, in hopes of preventing a full Confederate Invasion of the North, when the Union failed to surrender. He was sent as one of the three Confederate commissioners who met with Lincoln on the steamer River Queen at the Hampton Roads Conference, a fruitless effort to discuss measures to bring an end to the fight. Stephens and Lincoln had been close friends and Whig political allies in the 1840s. Although peace terms were not reached, due to the heavy damage that was being conducted on Washington DC, despite a temporary ceasefire being ordered by Richmond in order to stop the Confederate bombardment of the US capital. Lincoln did agree to look into the whereabouts of Stephens's nephew, Confederate Lieutenant John A. Stephens. When Lincoln returned left for the ruins of Washington DC, where the Siege would continue on for another 10 months, however Stephen's attempts at peace with Lincoln eventually remained in the president's head, as it conspired him to surrender to General Lee, and end the war a month later in April of 1865, Stephens was devastated when he eventually learned of Lincoln's assassination on the night of April 15th, while the city of Washington was being bombarded. 'Political Governor of Georgia 1866-1872' Stephens was sent back to his home in Crawfordville, on May 11, 1865. He was since then responsible to order and keep inspection of most of the governmental assets of the Confederate States of America, while at the same time, continued to run political power, on the CSA's growing economy. As the Confederacy carved deeper into the Union, Stephens was later awarded temporary governorship of Georgia, as a reward by president Jefferson Davis, in order to thank the vice president for his assets on keeping the CSA political movements strong and profitable in 1866. He continued to remain with Georgia as a political figure, from 1866 to 1872, until he was eventually called to return back to the Vice President role, after the arrival of France and England. 'Final Years and Death' In 1873, Stephens was elected CSA Representative from the 8th District to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Ambrose R. Wright. Stephens was subsequently re-elected to the 8th District as a key figure in 1874, 1876, and 1878, and as a representative of Georgia, as the War returned south bound, by 1878. He served in the 43rd through 47th Confederate Parliament, from December 1, 1873 until his resignation on November 4, 1882. He returned to his Vice President Role, when the South was beginning to become overwhelmed by the Union, that same year in 1882. As the war drew towards Richmond, Stephens health began to decline heavily, to the point that he died on March 4, 1883, four months after returning to his vice presidential role, and about 2 months before Union forces arrived in Richmond. Trivia'' Category:Non Fictional Beings Category:American Civil War Era Category:Men Category:Confederate States of America Category:Nineteenth Century Vice Presidents